Posts by aqwsed12345

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

aqwsed12345

The meaning of the word "soul", as a component of Man

81

Careful what you wish for! Regarding Jehovah in the New Testament

by pizzahut2023 in

ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.

let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.

they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.

aqwsed12345

This is where the Protestant approach makes a mistake, it rips the Holy Scriptures and the revelation from the Church, and looks at the Scriptures as a "book thrown out from heaven" that God threw here, then "do with it what you will". I recommend you tor read Karl Barth's critique regarding the so-called "biblicists", which I wrote about HERE. The Holy Scriptures were born in the bosom of the Church, you cannot start again from cratch the history of the Church or the history of theology.

The interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is the competence of the Church, just as the Supreme Court is competent to interpret the Constitution. What the Court says about what the Constitution means, then the Constitution actually means that. What you or Steven X or John Y think about it is irrelevant.

The basis of all heresy is the removal of the Church from the picture: for this, the legend of the "Great Apostasy" is needed, that the Church is corrupted after a few decades after the apostles, so it must be invented again basicly out of nothing by some self-proclaimed pastor (be it Luther or Russel) opening the Bible on his desk to find out what is "true", "original" Christianity. This is quite a bold claim, and even an arrogant attitude to approach like this:

"Oh, I found Ecclesiastes 9:5 in the Bible! Surely no one has noticed this verse for two thousand years! Until now, all the theologians and church fathers were stupid and ignorant! But now I, ME, realized that the Church has been wrong for two thousand years!"

However, if the Church could fall into apostasy two thousand years ago, then Christianity is worthless. Jesus clearly promised that the Church would remain incorruptible until he comes back. There is no mention of a millennial pause for the true worship in the New Testament: on the contrary.

Check these too:

Also:

81

Careful what you wish for! Regarding Jehovah in the New Testament

by pizzahut2023 in

ok i'll bite.. let's say for a moment that jehovah's witnesses are right, and that the nt autographs (the originals) contained the tetragrammaton.let's say that the nt writers always wrote "jehovah" in greek (iexoba, as the witnesses spell it currently) when they quoted the hebrew scriptures, whether they quoted from the hebrew version or the septuagint, and jehovah's name appeared on the quote.

let's say that the original septuagint always had iexoba whenever they were referring to jehovah.then we have that the original septuagint said in psalms 101:26-28 the following:"at the beginning it was you, o jehovah, who founded the earth, and the heavens are works of your hands.

they will perish, but you will endure, and they will all become old like a garment.

aqwsed12345

This is not "dishonest work", since humility towards divine revelation is the number one prerequisite for doing theology. And if you look at Bible verses such as Acts 8:26-35, 2 Peter 1:20, 2 Peter 3:16, then it should be clear that the interpretation of the revelation cannot be approached with such an "oh that's easy, let's do it with an ax" mentality. And this was already written when the revelation at that time was not in a language, in a cultural-historical context existing in an environment fundamentally different from ours.

Applied to the present case: If the Holy Scriptures teach the real deity of Jesus, but at the same time make statements that seemingly contradict it, then you either do what the Watchtower did, which distorts the statements about his deity in their own Bible translation, or what ancient church fathers did in the first centuries of Christianity: formalating the doctrinne about duel nature of Jesus, and of hypostatic unity, which resolves all apparent contradictions.

[We] "believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess; that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man; God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God; and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh; but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether; not by confusion of Substance [Essence]; but by unity of Person." (Athanasian Creed)

"We confess, then, our lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the virgin, according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord." (Council of Ephesus)

"We all unanimously teach that our Lord Jesus Christ is to us One and the same Son, the Self-same Perfect in Godhead, the Self-same Perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly Man; the Self-same of a rational soul and body; co-essential with the Father according to the Godhead, the Self-same co-essential with us according to the Manhood; like us in all things, sin apart; before the ages begotten of the Father as to the Godhead, but in the last days, the Self-same, for us and for our salvation (born) of Mary the Virgin Theotokos as to the Manhood; One and the Same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten; acknowledged in Two Natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and (both) concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He was parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ." (Council of Chalcedon)

8

Justification

by Sea Breeze in

the..."other sheep...are...not even justified".

- wt 1938 pg.

jw's are internationally famous for rejecting the new covenant "for the forgiveness of sins" (mt.

aqwsed12345

Believers have one common hope (Eph 4:3-6), the faith of the apostles and the believers is of equal value (2Pt 1:1). Mt 24:45-51, the parable along with chapters 24-25, warns for vigilance and stewardship, not prophesying about the 20th century. The 144,000 in Rev 7 and 14 cannot be all the "anointed" ones called continuously over the past 2,000 years, because they experience the beginning of the "great tribulation" as a unified group. The "great crowd" in Rev 7 also emerges from "the great tribulation" in the future: today's Witnesses may not belong among them (7:13-14). Lk 12:32 the "little flock" refers to the smallness of the 12 apostles not in their number, but in their situation ("Have no fear...!", Lk 12:22, 25,29). The "kingdom" here does not refer to a place (heaven), but to a heart condition (Rom 14:17-18, Lk 12:31). Jn 10:16, Jesus already has other sheep in the 1st century, i.e., the non-Jewish peoples, and not after 1935 (Mt 10:5-6, 15:24 cf. Mt 28:19, Eph 2:14).

In God's kingdom, there are no first and second class of the believers. Whoever believes, God accepts as his child (Jn 1:12-13), a child of God (Gal 3:26, 4:6, Rom 8:15-16), born of God (1Jn 5:1, Jn 3:1-8), received the Holy Spirit (Jn 7:37-39), sealed by Christ with the Spirit (Eph 1:13-14, 2Cor 1:22), baptized and endued with the Spirit (1Cor 12:12-13), Christ dwells in him (Eph 3:17), he became the temple of the Spirit (1Cor 6:19-20). The 144,000 refer to the converted Jews; according to the Society, they cannot be Jews because the list of tribes does not match one of the Old Testament lists, but firstly, only three out of the twenty tribe lists in the Old Testament match (!), and secondly, Dan and Ephraim are missing because of idolatry. In Lk 12:32, the twelve disciples as the new Israel were indeed a "little flock" in need of trust in God's providence (see the context). From the parable before Mt 22:14, it becomes clear who the "many invited" and who the "few chosen" are; the invitees (the contemporary Jews) did not attend the royal wedding, while the guests invited from the street (the nations) receive festive clothing from their host according to the contemporary custom. The silent "guest" who only consumes but does not ask for the feast, offends the host and is justly thrown out: those who remain are the chosen ones - not the 144,000. The "other sheep" in Jn 10:16 also does not refer to JW's "earthly class", but to the nations. In Rev 7:9, the "great crowd" is indeed in heaven, "before the throne" (enopion), not merely "in the sight of" the throne (NWT), just like the 144,000 in Rev 14:3 (enopion here twice). 2Thess 2:13-14 does not talk about the 144,000 being chosen for the "participation in Christ's [heavenly] glory". The previous verses are about those who do not believe in the truth but take pleasure in falsehood, whom God therefore delivers up to delusion, and whom Satan also deceives; by contrast, the Thessalonian believers were "chosen from the beginning for salvation" by God. This is not about preselection (the eklegomai is not in the perfect tense), but about God's selection during evangelization (the haireo is in the aorist, which indicates a one-time choice between two options); the disbelief and the believer's obedience contrast with each other, there is no mention of the 144,000. 1Pt 1:5-8 does not guarantee salvation to the 144,000: Peter writes to the believers scattered throughout the world (1:1-2), reborn (1:3), who profess a faith of "equal value" to his own, who have become partakers of the divine nature through this faith, and have been saved from destruction (2Pt 1:1.4). In Heb 12:22-24, the name of the "general assembly of the firstborn" is written in the "book of life" in heaven (cf. Rev 20:11-15); if this "general assembly" referred to the 144,000, then only they would be saved - nobody else.

The New Testament would have made clear references to the existence of heavenly and earthly classes, regarding which word, section or letter speaks about and to whom. Such references are not there, so either we have to discard the New Testament because of the shocking, misleading carelessness of the sacred writers, or the doctrine of "two classes" of salvation. Otherwise, considering the alleged privileges of the 144,000, the mass of Witnesses would unnecessarily take up the Bible, as only a fraction of it speaks about and to them. The reading of the "Watchtower" remains for the other millions of Witnesses... It is also questionable who can know how many of the 144,000 repented during the first Christian generation, and at which number the counter stood at the time of Russell and his followers?

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

aqwsed12345

Rattigan350

The fact that you might have ADHD and find it difficult to interpret long texts is not my fault. Regardless, I have no idea what you "proved wrong with one sentence". The immortality of the soul is a common teaching of mainstream Judaism and Christianity, which Jesus never objected. The "one-liner" "proof verses" (ab)used by the Watchtower can easily be refuted.

Check THIS.

Since when does the teaching of resurrection exclude the conscious existence between physical death and resurrection? Resurrection represents "recreation" only in the ideology of denominations like the Watchtower (lacking any precedents in the church history and history of theology). The term "heaven" doesn't mean a separate place, but it's a synonym for salvation, and to be saved doesn't mean only to "survive" from such a Watchtower-like meteor shower, but to experience a supernatural elevation. The earth where the bodies of the saved rise won't be THIS earth (as it will perish, see 2 Peter 3:10-13), but that new earth where the new heaven descends, the heavenly Jerusalem (see Revelation 21). From this, murderers, poison mixers etc. will be excluded, not some second-class caste of so-called "Jonadab class".

So, that earth will be no less heaven than earth - as the two will overlap each other, see Ephesians 1:10.

According to Scripture, what God has prepared for the redeemed has not been seen by any eye nor heard by any ear, and this cannot simply be the restoration of the state before original sin and the Edenic Garden, as Adam and Eve obviously saw and heard that. Therefore, salvation is much more than the recovery of the state before original sin.

According to traditional Christianity, the saved exist in heaven without a body/materially only until the physical resurrection. After the resurrection, that Kingdom in which they will be will be just as much earth as it will be heaven, since the new, heavenly Jerusalem will descend to earth, thus fulfilling Ephesians 1:10.

This is a completely clear explanation of how the same group can claim both that they will go to heaven and that they will inherit the earth - without dividing the hope of redemption between two castes, which contradicts Ephesians 4:4.

So, the question of Jehovah's Witnesses whether eternal happiness will be in heaven OR on earth is a simple false dilemma because the correct answer is that it will be in that Kingdom, which can be said to be both in heaven AND on earth, as stated above.

The fulfillment of the soul's fate after the death of the body doesn't require "resurrection". It's only the theology of the Watchtower that says the anointed "resurrect" to heaven. If you look at the beginning of the second Corinthians 5, you can read that Paul also hoped that he could return to the heavenly home WHEN he dies, regardless of (physical) resurrection.

Those who died before the resurrection, whose souls go to heaven (without a body) in the intermediate state, their bodies don't "transform". Paul states the going to heaven in 2 Corinthians 5, independent of the body (and resurrection). Then, of course, the "transformation"/"change" signaled in 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 doesn't yet occur, when the corruptible body puts on incorruptibility. The time spent in heaven in the intermediate state is more pleasant than the life full of suffering on earth, but this is not yet the full existence that comes after the resurrection when the body will also be glorified.

JWs commonly misunderstand the term "heaven", which leads you into the error of believing that if a person's body is resurrected on the NEW earth, they have to come out of heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven, or Kingdom of God is nothing more than the place of perfect happiness, the fulfilled state of God's Kingdom. Thus, this word is an expression of final salvation, where people participate in God's life through Christ. Christ's Ascension did not mean that he was detached from this world, but rather that he gave and demonstrated the possibility of cosmic glorification. Our salvation and happiness is nothing more than participating in his glory. Heaven is not some external place where a person arrives, but rather being with Christ, participating in his glory, which he has earned for himself and for us through his earthly merits. Heaven cannot be understood as a separate place or a completely different state, but rather as the communion of people with God. Therefore, when we talk about a "higher" world, we should not understand it in terms of space, but in terms of the order of existence.

The earth to which the bodies of the saved will be resurrected will not be THIS earth (since it will perish, see 2 Peter 3:10-13), but that new earth onto which the new heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem descends (see Revelation 21). This "place" will be as much earth as it is heaven - so the saved do not need to "come out" of heaven for their souls to reunite with their bodies resurrected on the new earth, because the (new) heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem, will descend to earth.

Of course, not only the saved will be resurrected, but the wicked as well: Christ specifically proclaims the resurrection of the wicked too. For example, "...your whole body goes to hell" (Matthew 5:29-30); "...to be thrown into eternal fire with both feet" (Matthew 18:8-9); "Fear rather the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matthew 10:28); "...those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned" (John 5:28-29). They obviously won't be in the new Jerusalem but will be tormented forever in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). The resurrected bodies of the damned must possess the most general characteristics of the otherworldly state (such as immortality and some form of transcendence of time and space), but they must be the opposite of the glorified ones. So, there will be passivity, and the transcendence of time will probably manifest itself in the boredom of monotony and hopelessness. They do not receive the joy and freedom of life, they feel trapped, they become unable to give and accept love, and as a result, the greatest disharmony reigns in their souls, which becomes externally perceptible. However, we must be careful not to let unfounded anthropomorphic fantasies mislead us in this regard, as well as in our imagination of otherworldly sufferings and rewards.

Paul the Apostle and the other saved souls exist in heaven. Before Christ's redemption, heaven was closed; at this time, all the deceased were still together in the underworld (Sheol) in a joyless, mournful existence, even if they were chosen for eternal salvation. Although they were separate from those condemned to hell (see Ezekiel 32:17-32), this place - as the limbo - was not a place of joy, but of mute sorrow, where they did not even praise God. This is completely different from heaven, which was only opened by Christ's crucifixion. From that point on, death became joy, and from then on, the saints who died praised God. The saved ones who died before Christ went to heaven when Christ "ascended on high, leading a host of captives" (Ephesians 4:8).

We are not saying that the role of heaven is for a person to live there forever without a body, like a spiritual being. For here, we do not necessarily understand heaven as a separate place that only represents the spiritual realm, but as the state of cosmic glorification. We also profess the resurrection of the body. Immortality and resurrection relate to each other as shell and core, as beginning and end. Resurrection is one way of believing in immortality. It can only be imagined if life after death can be imagined at all. However, resurrection does not mean that a person "comes out" of heaven (since it is not a place, as I mentioned above), but that the body also resurrects and glorifies and unites with the already glorified soul.

The soul is not a separate "being", Christians do NOT understand this in a Platonic way, they REJECT the idea that the body is the "prison" of the soul, it is just a garment, and that the soul alone is the person. Therefore, we cannot be accused of denying the tragedy of the reality of death if we profess the possibility of the conscious continuation of the soul after the death of the body. The unity of the soul and the body is so deep that the soul must be regarded as the "form" of the body; that is, the body made of matter is a human and living body because of the spiritual soul; the spirit and matter in man are not two united natures, but their unity forms a single nature. The soul in itself is NOT a separate "being", we do NOT say that the soul alone is the person. The soul is destined to exist together with the body, it is an element of a spiritual nature.

It's worth noting that the Society's publications typically refer to the Old Testament when discussing the state of the dead. If we look at the full biblical background, we must see that many questions were gradually revealed by God. What was not clear to the people of Israel during the Old Testament times became clearer with the newer revelations of the New Testament. The Society should be aware of this principle, as it often refers to Proverbs 4:18: "But the path of the righteous is like the bright morning light That grows brighter and brighter until full daylight." (NWT).

Considering the continuous revelation of the whole Bible, we see that a picture contrary to the WTS's is revealed concerning the state of the dead. Based on Deuteronomy 18:10-11, it is clear that in Moses' time people thought they could communicate with the dead, thus attributing some conscious existence to them after their death. Later, 1 Samuel 28:11-15 also tells of the similar belief of the people of Israel. (Interestingly, the narrator simply states that Samuel appeared there.)

Turning to the New Testament, we encounter similar thoughts. Matthew 17:3, Mark 9:4, 15:36 confirm that Moses and Elijah were still self-conscious even in Jesus' time, and this belief characterized the Jews in the 1st century AD. The grammatically correct translation of Luke 23:43 promises the right thief that he will be in Paradise with Jesus that very day. The apostle Paul also lived in the hope that after the death of his physical body he would immediately enter into the presence of God (2 Corinthians :8, Philippians 1:23-24, 2 Timothy 4:6), and Peter expressed himself similarly (2 Peter 1:13-15). Hebrews 12:22-23 talks about the 'spirits of the righteous made perfect,' and Revelation 6:9-11 and 20:4 about the souls of those who died martyrdom for Jesus — affirming that the dead are self-conscious. John 11:25-26 and Romans 8:38-39 talk about how even death cannot separate us from God, because those who die still live and essentially never die.

What about those verses that the Society often cites to support their position? The context of Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 is the entire book of Ecclesiastes, which describes various things of life from the perspective of an earthly person. That's why Solomon often repeats the expression "under the sun" in the book, referring to worldly life. But it does not want to say anything about the afterlife because the book is not about that. Ezekiel 18:4, 20 states, "The soul that sins, it shall die", or — according to the Society's argument — the soul can die too, it does not survive the body. However, the expression "soul" has several meanings and includes breath, life, self. The meaningful translation of the verse would roughly sound like: "He who sins must die." This is also consistent with the context, as it writes about whether the sons must be punished for the sins of the fathers.

What is the reason that the Watchtower Society always refers only to these Old Testament places? Why do they even resort to Bible forgery (see Lk 23:43) to infuse their own theology into the Bible? Why do they struggle to accept the revelations of the Bible?

73

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

slimboyfat

You see, that's why you shouldn't turn to secular, anti-Christian Bible critics, because they don't use a scalpel to peel away possible secondary interpolations, but instead attack the entire canon with an ax. With such power, the Pentateuch is not the work of Moses, but material "put together" over the centuries, as secular critics claim. But this hypothesis does not help you now, because there are indeed those who argue that John 21 though present in all extant manuscripts, may be a later addition, but not a single serious historian or philologist says that 1) it is the work of Polycarp, 2) if this is so, then the name of YHWH must have been falsified from the entire New Testament also.

From a Catholic point of view, possible secondary authorship does not preclude canonicity, as the Council of Trent records as such:

"If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, let him be anathema."

People dissect parables based on all sorts of nonsense, and in the end, it turns out that Jesus did not say anything like it, but it was only the first or second-generation Christian community that made up the verses. Of course, modernists try to reassure us that this does not change the sacred nature and inspiration of the Scripture because the Church's practice of preaching consecrated the text, blah blah blah. OK! But if so, why are they stripping for example the Pericope Adulterae and other important "layers" from the Bible? If it does not matter who originally wrote or said the prophet, apostle, or Jesus what we read in the Bible, why are they omitting the "less old additions". Where do they draw the line?

Various ideas have been born about how the divine and the human author work together when writing the sacred text. That is, does the Holy Spirit dictate the text literally, or just takes care of the essence and the content, by reminding the author of God's message. However, this essentially remains a mystery. One thing is certain, the Holy Spirit prompts the author to write, guards the content so that no error enters it, but does not take away the author's freedom in terms of formulation, and thus the author's education, knowledge of language, theological conception, emotional world, and character also leave a mark on the text, besides that God inspires every detail of the Scripture, even the seemingly insignificant parts, as taught by Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical "Providentissimus" (DS 1950). The essence of the mystery is, therefore, that just as Jesus is fully God and fully man, so Scripture is entirely the work of God, but also entirely human. Therefore, according to Thomas Aquinas, we can talk about a primary author (auctor principalis) in relation to the Scripture, who is the Holy Spirit, and an executive author (auctor instrumentalis), who is the inspired writer (Summa Theologica: II-II, 171-174 ). Some people talked about verbal inspiration to protect divine authorship, that is, that God inspired not only the content but every single word. But can we still talk about a human author in this case? Others taught real inspiration to preserve the freedom of the human author, according to which the Holy Spirit only prompted the sacred author to write. But the divine authorship in this case is so indirect that the Bible could hardly be truly God's message. The teachings of the Church Fathers (John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Alexandria), who compared the human author to a harp or tool, stand between the two extremes: God plucks the strings, but the harp gives the sound. This conception of inspiration also allows the evangelists to write down or omit different details about Christ's resurrection without making false statements (Augustine). The Council of Trent similarly speaks when in its teaching the human author appears as a tool used against the divine, as the pen in the hand of the writer / "dictante quasi per manus traditæ" / (DH 1501).

The inspiration ensures that it is not possible to make a mistake in Scripture. Augustine writes this to the more liberal Jerome:

"I confess to your that I have learned that profound respect against only the canonical sacred books, by the meaning of which I am firmly convinced that none of its authors wrote down an error. If I still stumble upon something that appears to be contrary to the truth, I do not hesitate to think that either the codex is faulty, or the translator does not understand the meaning of what was said, or I do not understand the whole thing” (August. Ep. 28)

Orthodox (and even conservative-wing) Judaism accepts (at least) the literal inspiration of the Torah, and they have a canonical document for this, the Masoretic canon. In this Torah, the place of every letter and the rules for copying are precisely defined; it is stipulated which "verse" must start and end a page with which letter. This group of documents known to the public as the "Hebrew canon" (Tanakh = Torah + Nevi'im + Ketuvim = Moses + Prophets + Writings), which was also used by SJerome in preparing the Vulgate.

Trained Hebraists argue more precisely about when this was fixed. The fact is that this division already existed in Jesus' time, it was used from a liturgical point of view, but in terms of the canon, pre-Christian Judaism probably treated the canon as freely as the Catholic Church does: although the entire Vulgate, in every verse and "lemma", is the basic canon, it does not reject the use of other, ancient translations by churches "outside of Rome", and the liturgical use of "apocryphal" (e.g., Psalm 151). Thus, Jews did not reject broader translations used "outside the Land" and their sacramental value.

A stricter canon management approach developed in a group of the Pharisee party (hence the polemic about the letter and the spirit), which was also recorded at the Council of Jamnia (around AD 90). The Masoretic canon, which has remained essentially unchanged since then, was created after this. Interestingly, the "square" letter also became common by this time, essentially gaining its unchanged (only stylistically varying) shape.

Of course, the letter also has a symbolic meaning, this is dealt with by Jewish mysticism, which ultimately originates from "the" Mystery of the Name. This partly survived in Christianity. This partly developed from an internal divine intention, and partly the Pythagorean aftertaste of the Hellenistic environment affected it with its number and letter mysticism. This could now be a separate topic.

By the way, the Torah of the Septuagint canon shows greater agreement in its differences with the Samaritan Pentateuch, in those places which have been set up by Protestant and Jewish principles as "textual corruption", "translation error". Since the "Hebrew canon" is later than the original text from which the Septuagint was translated, and the Samaritan Torah confirms the "mistakes" of the Septuagint translation, as a Catholic we can believe that the Septuagint's "differences" are not the results of "corruption". Not to mention that the Greek base text of the New Testament (not the original text! ) uses the Septuagint, with its "translation errors" and deuterocanonical books. Jesus and the apostles quote the deuterocanonical books as "Scripture" in the New Testament.

Muslims also have an "original Quran", which they declared canonical, and essentially destroyed the other text variants.

Catholics and Orthodox accept inspiration according to the "lemma" ("the holy author only wrote down what God wanted him to write down" - thus a false thought in the divine sense is not in it, everything has at least a deeply symbolic message, if not historical). They rejected the extreme "symbolism" (which, for example, Origenes finally practiced) in that they considered what was described in it as a myth by pulling out all historical foundations. God actually entered chronos (space-time) and actually did miracles and gave prophecies, which came true.

The Holy Spirit definitively recorded the text of the Vulgate through the Magisterium. It doesn't say that other churches, other rites, should not use others, or that they should throw out the Vetus Latina texts from the liturgy. BUT this is a sure point now. Similar approach as in pre-Christian Judaism on the "Hebrew canon of the Land". That is, the Church did not proclaim an "original canon", but a "pattern canon" in the original sense of the word canon.

Protestants have proclaimed the principle that the original copy is the real one.

Let's see where this - also existing among Jews and Muslims - approach is wrong:

The Torah was partially written by Moses according to the Jews, this is the so-called "written Torah", while the so-called "oral Torah" is the Mishnah (i.e., "repetition"), which was later recorded in the Talmud. (Let's not talk about the Karaites here, who are basically the Protestants of Judaism.) The written Torah according to the Jews was already established in the time of Moses. However, they can't claim to have the original copy in their possession. Thus, the "original canon" can be compared to the lost Ark of the Covenant, which begins to undermine the integrity of the canon.
Among Muslims there is a similar duality (Quran and Hadith), however, according to the Quran, Muhammad himself was illiterate, not to mention when the "canonized" Quran writing came about. Thus the "original" canon there is also a myth.
Protestants invented the idea that the Catholic Church "falsified" the Bible, as the sole source of faith, the sole manifestation of God's revelation. Therefore, Luther wanted to retranslate it from Hebrew and Greek. However, he didn't know the Hebrew and Greek "original canon" either.

Catholicism, already in the era of the Church Fathers, did not deny stratification (see the dispute about the "Letter to the Hebrews"), however, it did not make the text's literal "ancientness" a condition for canonicity.

Modern philology, unfortunately, has been infected by human arrogance, unbelief, and stupidity. Because what is it about? The authorship of those certain "secondary interpolations" like the Pericope Adulterae and the Longer Ending of Mark can be disputed, but it is strictly forbidden to throw it out of the canon. As Christ's humanity is true, for example, his beard was an integral accident, which organically grew out after puberty (the baby Jesus did not have a beard), i.e., it was not his own at birth, but came about organically during his development. The same way some "later addition" were not part of the letter of the original authors at its "birth", but was added to the Church in the course of divine Providence. The canon's "unchangeability", "carved in stone, inorganic" is just as much as Jesus' humanity changed as long as he pilgrimaged in chronos: he ate, drank, physiological changes also occurred in his body during the 33 years. Thus his physical body underwent accidental changes, which did not begin to undermine his substantial integrity. Now the same is true analogously to the "body" of Holy Scripture. This is why truly orthodox (and not modernist) Catholic exegesis is truly Christlike.

Philology, unfortunately, was influenced by Jewish-Muslim-Protestant original canonism, which is not a coincidence, as rationalist Bible criticism also sprouted in Protestant soil.

About the so-called "layers". This is where human stupidity and foolishness comes in, the crucifixion of the canon, which thus walks a path similar to the Calvary of the Incarnate Word. Someone truly and rightfully discovered the "later addition". The response to this, "This bastard x.y. discovered this and that, I hated him already at university, now I'll discover that John didn't even write the letter!" Jesus said, evil comes from the heart, which makes one unclean. Most preconceptions are born from pseudo-scientific arrogance, the "publication" pressure, and what's trendy: To show about the Bible it's not like this, nor like that, as the Church interpreted it. This is the continuation of the Protestant rebellion in a "scientifically" disguised guise, but the cat is out of the bag.

In this, among several renowned researchers, was the tragically heart-attacked Carsten Peter Thiede (1952-2004), a German-born Anglican, a biblical professor at Ben Gurion University and Oxford. He wrote the work "The Quest for the True Cross", in which he proves that the crucifixion relics (pieces of the holy cross, pieces of the crown of thorns, nail, plaque) of the Roman basilica Santa Croce in Gerusalemme were indeed donated to Rome by Saint Helena, and they are indeed true relics related to Christ.

This German researcher showed with UV examination of Egyptian and Holy Land papyri, analysis of letter types, that the Gospel of Matthew (this is the first!) was created in the time of the eyewitnesses, before AD 50, in the forties, its abbreviated version is the Gospel of Mark truly written in Rome, and that also before the destruction of the Temple.

The arrogant "scientific public" immediately roared, they ridiculed him, qualified him as preconceived, counter-evidence none. The last argument was like "it may have been created then, but it's still just a fairy tale and not a real historical document". No comment, or rather, "comma".

Otherwise, history proves that the creed of old Protestantism (sola Scriptura) leads first to fanaticism (literal-fundementalist inspiration of the original canon), later to heresy, the creed of rationalism (only 'science' is the true interpreter) leads quickly to Christ-denial. On the contrary, by virtue of its constancy, the Catholic creed is the preserver of the Christian Gospel, and by virtue of its living, organic nature, it is able to adapt to every demand and capability in the proclamation of the gospel.

You can dissect the canon with preconceived questions, one can lash its surface, brutally cut "layers" off it, crucify it, mock it, interrogate it, asking where is God in you... BUT, when someone reaches the heart of the canon, they exclaim: "This is indeed the Son of God!"

That's why I said the "original canon" is one thing, the "base canon" is another, and the "pattern canon" is yet another. The canon is a living reality.

The "original canon" mania emerged on a Protestant basis, first with fanaticism, then it tried to attack the true flock and their faith with pseudoscience. Unfortunately, some Catholic exegetes also (perhaps unknowingly, because they were raised in this way) adopted the ideology of "original canonism".

This is the so-called "canonical-archaism", which is similar to the failed ideology that the early Church, or the pre-Carolingian Roman liturgy is the good one, and it must be reconstructed.

It is equally erroneous when they come up with the idea that the first form of the canon is the good one, and finally they get to the point (filled with forced hypotheses, preconceptions refutable with basic language knowledge) that the "base canon" is just a patchwork of footnotes.

This is roughly like saying that Jesus Christ can only be depicted as a zygote, as that's what He was when He incarnated. However, this was in His mother's womb, and it developed mysteriously there before He "was born". The canon also had a conception, intrauterine development, birth, and a coming into the public, "canonization". However, those who kill the "Mother" (the Church), the crucifiers of the Son, don't understand this. Without the Mother, the Son cannot be understood, and in His initial form, He is wrapped in the mystery of the Mother, beneath her heart. The same is true in the case of child-killing pseudo-exegetes posing in doctors' coats: they want to tear Christ apart in the womb already. Separating the Canon from the Church is essentially sacrilege amounting to abortion. This scraping began 500 years ago.

Those incapable of synthesis try to dissect and overanalyze the mystery. The counterfeit works of modernist (and not modern!) exegesis are sacrilegious, God- and man-contemptuous pornographic documents that seek to dissect the indivisible.

Hands off the holy canon! ENOUGH of the desecralization of the canon! Let's not turn God's dwelling place into a marketplace!

By God's grace, I still BELIEVE in inspiration, in INSPIRATION and not in what they falsely call inspiration, with which they stuff the word form "inspiration", but biblical studies must be illuminated both by faith with the intellect.

One can analyze the human part of the Scripture with scientific honesty and humility (considering the limits of science), anyone can think whatever they want about the Holy Scripture, but for me, the Bible is God's word, which has been clothed in human speech, and if I read it in the Holy Spirit, the divine Word (which is sharper than a sword) penetrates my heart, pervades not just the "abstract" mind, but it takes the entire existence with it. The Bible is God's word, His Word not only in an object sense but also in a subject sense!

73

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

slimboyfat

Are there any contemporary sources that claim that "Polycarp and his associates" did anything to the text of the New Testament, let alone such a theologically significant change? The Watchtower does not say this about Polycarp, nor does it slander him as an "apostate", in fact, they describe him as a positive figure in their publications.

By then, Christianity had already reached the borders of the Roman Empire, far from the relevant episcopal seats and any kind of control. In the second century, the New Testament was already translated into several languages, Syriac, Latin (Vetus Latina), Coptic, etc. And of course they don't contain any traces for "Jehovah" either.

No ecclesiastical center had either the ability or the influence to carry through such a theologically significant change without a trace, and to erase all versions of the text that are different from this alleged "apostate" one.

It was difficult for Christians to accept even theologically insignificant translation changes (for example, the changing of the Latin term used for 'qiqayon' (likely castor oil plant) in Jonah 4:6 from 'cucurbita' (“gourd”) to 'hedera' (“ivy”), and a bishop had caused a great disturbance just by reading aloud it, and had nearly lost his flock), which is why it took centuries until Jerome's Vulgate replaced the Vetus Latina in Western Christianity. Don't you not that the doctrine of God's being himself would have passed without a word, without it being noticed by any one, and causing considerable rebellion?

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

aqwsed12345

vienne

Annihilationism is not a teaching of the Bible, but of the Sadducees.

Both the Jewish mainstream before Christ and the consensus of early Christianity unanimously believed in a conscious existence after death. If you want to delve deeper into the question, I recommend the following book:

The Christian Doctrine of Immortality by Stewart D.F. Salmond

The Christian understanding of the soul was not "borrowed" from Platonism, it is just a paganophobic conspiracy theory of the WTS and other Catholic-hating sects (like the Adventists), along with the legend of the "Great Apostasy", invented to "explain" where their denomination and their teachings were, before them in the history of the Church.

In fact, the Platonist understanding of the soul was condemned as heresy by the Catholic Church in 1312 at the Council of Vienne, where extreme monist and extreme dualist conceptions of man were condemned.

According to many rationalist religious historians, the earlier books of the Old Testament do not speak of the afterlife of the soul (some newer ones argue they are silent only to avoid fueling the widespread animism among the Semites). In this question, we have to conclude that

a) the whole Old Testament is not directly oriented towards the afterlife, but towards God. But this very focus indirectly includes the belief in immortality, as the Savior indicates: "God is not of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him" (Lk 20:38; cf. Wis 15.)

b) It is also certain that God gradually led the bearer of revelation to a higher religious position on this issue. He did not preempt the normal spiritual development like a Deus ex machina, but tied his revelations about the afterlife, and thus immortality, into its phases.

c) Finally, it should not be overlooked that the Scriptures do not deal with immortality as an abstract philosophical theorem, but present it in a really realized form, in connection with the resurrection of the body. In the first stage of revelation, due to the obscurity of views and concepts about the afterlife, the sacred writers also stood under the impression of experience: this present life, with its defined forms, joys, and colors, speaks to man; compared to this, the afterlife is colorless, joyless, a shadowy existence (Cf. Job 10:21, Ps 88:12, 114:17, Is 38:18 etc.); it is not the same for the good and the bad (Deut 32:22.). And the passing of this earthly existence, the path of all living beings seemingly leading uniformly to death, casts a melancholic mood on the Old Testament meditator (Job 14:7-14 Eccl 2:14-16 3:11-22 6:6 9:4-6 etc.).

But still, the oldest books also know about the afterlife of the soul:

a) Jacob calls his and his fathers' earthly life a pilgrimage (Gen 47:9; cf. Heb 11:9.);

b) the descent into Sheol, the gathering to the fathers often does not simply want to express burial (Gen 15:5 25:8 35:29 37:35 49:32.);

c) both the prohibition and fact of spirit invocation are evidence (Lev 19:31 20:6.27 Deut 18:11; 1 Sam 28,75).

Such phrases in the Bible: "may my soul die with the death of the righteous", are Hebraisms. The Scriptures describe the origin of man not philosophically, but illustratively, and therefore attribute the נָפֶשׁ (nefesh, the principle of life manifested in warm breath) to both man and animal. The nefesh often replaces the reflexive and personal pronouns in Hebrew; thus such statements should be understood: "my soul shall die" = "I shall die". Nevertheless, there is no doubt about the superior origin of the human soul and its nature significantly different from the body: God directly breathes the breath of life into man, whom He created in His own image, not like animals, and therefore there is no similar among the animals; his נְשָׁמָה (neshama, sensible soul) is unique to man. The soul is not subject to the fate of the body; so it has a different kind of existence.

The later books of the Old Testament and the New Testament explicitly say: "God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity" (Wisdom 2 throughout; cf. Ecc 12:7 Sir 11:28 51:38 Tob 4:3 12:9 2 Mac 2:46 6:25 7 12:45 Dan 12:1-3.); "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Mt 10:28; cf. Lk 20:36-38.) "Whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (Jn 12:25; cf. all those places where the New Testament speaks about eternal life in connection with man.)

92

Ecclesiastes 9:5 -"the dead know nothing at all"

by aqwsed12345 in

the narrator of the book of ecclesiastes had very little knowledge of many things that jesus and his apostles later preached.

the author does not make statements, but only wonders (thinks, observes, often raises questions, and leaves them open).

he looked at the world based on the law of moses and found nothing but vanity, as the earthly reward promised in the law did not always accompany good deeds and earthly punishment for evil deeds.

aqwsed12345

Reasonfirst

There are many other examples in the Bible of Scripture presenting an idea without calling us up to identify with it. Like:

"Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”" (Psalm 14:1)

In such cases, biblical inspiration does not mean to the correctness of the outlined idea, but to the accuracy of the account. So this "one-liner" "proof text" cited by JWs here is a passage that even the inspired writer did not intend to teach as infallible and final revelation, rather, it presents the thought process of the narrator pondering the path and the meaning of life.

The other argument is that "the dead know nothing at all" does not mean that the dead are unconscious, annihilated and nonexistent, but that they have no knowledge of anything "under the sun" (since they are in the Sheol).

Please read my argument presented on the first page of this topic. The WTS Bible interpretation here completely ignores the established principles of scriptural interpretation (exegesis), ignores the narrower and broader context of the verse, it is completely absurd.

However, since God speaks in Sacred Scripture through men in human fashion, (6) the interpreter of Sacred Scripture, in order to see clearly what God wanted to communicate to us, should carefully investigate what meaning the sacred writers really intended, and what God wanted to manifest by means of their words.
To search out the intention of the sacred writers, attention should be given, among other things, to "literary forms." For truth is set forth and expressed differently in texts which are variously historical, prophetic, poetic, or of other forms of discourse. The interpreter must investigate what meaning the sacred writer intended to express and actually expressed in particular circumstances by using contemporary literary forms in accordance with the situation of his own time and culture. (7) For the correct understanding of what the sacred author wanted to assert, due attention must be paid to the customary and characteristic styles of feeling, speaking and narrating which prevailed at the time of the sacred writer, and to the patterns men normally employed at that period in their everyday dealings with one another. (8)

73

"Jehovah" In The New Testament.

by LostintheFog1999 in

i see they have updated their list of translations or versions where some form of yhwh or jhvh appears in the new testament.. https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/appendix-c/divine-name-new-testament-2/.

aqwsed12345

Phizzy

"the Name may have been removed for devious reasons, as the Trinity Doctrine developed."

This theory fails on the fact that the manuscripts made long before the Council of Nicaea do NOT contain the divine name YHWH either.

It is no coincidence that the Watchtower stands on the same platform with conspiracy-believing, anti-Christian authors who believe that "Constantine founded the Church and rewrote the Bible", in opposition to the position of Christians who believe in the intact preservation of the New Testament scriptures. In this matter they are on the same platform with e.g. Dan Brown or Bart Ehrman.

Furthermore, why did the Arians not refer to the alleged New Testament presence of the divine name YHWH and its importance in refuting Nicene theology? So even the trends considered heretical by the Church never referred to an alleged falsification or mistranslation of the Bible. At that time, the Alexandrian Library and the Theological Library of Caesarea Maritima (of Eusebius) still existed, where many early manuscripts, which have since been destroyed, were kept. Yet no one has ever mentioned a manuscript tradition that is significantly different from the one known today!

Nor does Wulfila's Gothic translation suggest anything of the sort.